Saying the Wrong, Doing the Right
by badgerjaw
Summary: Sometimes words just aren't enough. IchiRuki


They are in his bedroom under the cover of darkness, the midnight hour having passed long before. Only the glowing numerals of the alarm clock and the half-waxed moon pierce the night and paint their weary faces, half in white, half in red.

He's not quite how to register her face being so close to his, that persistent lock of hair invading the personal space of his eye, the tip of her nose brushing against his like an ever so slight breeze, her lips venturing closer and closer with each emotion-heavy breath they took. Drying tear stains reflect the soft light and his lips quiver in answer, strangely ignoring his mind's call for self control and wanting to feel the salty liquid evaporate under the heat of his lips.

She's driving him mad, as per normal, but in an entirely new way.

Almost unnoticed, fresh tears creep down her face and suddenly distance infects the air between them like a virus, cold and cruel. His hands protest by twitching madly in her direction, calling her back within arm's reach, seeking for her angular elbow to make her stop her retreat, reaching to bring her crashing into his embrace. Whether to kiss or to weep, he did not know, did not care, just as long as he could do something. He would do anything to ease that tortured look in her eyes.

"Rukia," he starts, his voice hoarse.

She looks back, her eyes questioning, her lips set and she waits for him to continue. Her stance says that she is uncertain about even this decision. Her head keeps its angle away from him as if wishing for that closet to loom over her and swallow her whole. But her body sits in front of his, her legs almost bearing a relaxed angle up on the bed. She is the very picture of indecision.

"Um... don't leave," he stammers. He's already beating himself over the head before the last word leaves his lips, so it tumbles out like a newborn chick from a high tree.

Her eyes narrow by a half of a millimeter and the left side of her mouth angles downward by a degree or two. If he listens carefully past the loud silence of the night, he could hear her inward scoff. What scares him is that he doesn't know what it means.

"Good night," she says. The words are brutally polite and detached as she stands. For one dreadful moment, he thinks he hears her call him 'Ichigo-san.'

Quietly, the moon and clock relinquish their holds on her face, and she is cast into the blind darkness. Her eyes skim over him, and just this once sincerely disapproves.

_That was weak, idiot._

The thought is both of theirs.

Listening to her weight transfer itself across the floor is painful. Not nearly as much as hearing his closet door sliding open, which, in turn, drowns the torment that bursts in his chest when the door slides shut and the sound of her collapsing on the bedding is muffled by cheap wood.

Minutes by the handful flicker by on the illuminated alarm clock. He still stares at the closet door, hoping that she'll give him another chance to say something better than what he had. But no. They both lay awake on their respective beds thinking about the past, near and far away, wondering what they could've said or done to make everything better, or at least different than how it had turned out. Words scroll across Ichigo's brain like a marquee, mocking him. Actions play across her mind like many randomized scenes from a thousand different novels.

_Fool, he thinks, there is nothing you can say that can help right now. It's no fucking use trying to think of something now._

So as the moon sets behind the black hulking form of a neighboring building, he stands and opens the closet door. He's instantly met by her eyes, which are softened by lonely thoughts, that glint from the darkest corner and look as if they do not really register what they are seeing. He climbs in, shuts the door so a sliver of coming light can get in, and sits beside her intentionally invading her personal space. Their thighs are touching, and both their bodies relax, their brows smoothing out, shoulders slumping, chests loosening.

His arm snakes around her narrow shoulders, her head droops onto his broad chest, and in the fading darkness, everything feels right.


End file.
